The 1 reply to that video is pretty epic

jmrock, they print whatever their customer requests don't they? even if its absolute crap.

The verve deck on my side is sold out.

Perhaps it is because printing in Sweden is cheaper than the USPCC they can afford to give away so much stuff, I assume its gonna handle like the Anglos which is not a problem of course. But according to Carpathiateam there will be 2 print runs, 1 USPCC and 1 Swedish, the Swedish ones will have more colours splashed in.

But even that being said giving away so much stuff really cuts the profit margin,I believe fearless leader Alex made about $3,000 designing and selling the vortex. Assuming the profits are the same that leaves the Carpathia team with less than $2,000 as profit.

Assuming there are more than 1 person in said team, each person won't get much for their work. Although that being said each person probably didn't really give a crap seeing how they ignored all suggestions and is adamant about giving us a thick bordered, black and white, nowhere near the theme put forward in the first place deck.

' I do not neglect everyone's proposal, and I looked at each. ' Suggestions were seen and promptly forgotten about.
'I try to modify the back color' Sorry what colour? I guess black and white are 2 colours.

Also to show how disproportionate their instruments are, this is the instrument on the King of Clubs in real life, see how my hand is not half the size of it?

Just another thing Randy, say I wanted to get the ornate decks, boxes and chips, I would need to buy the decks from HOPC, the boxes from Midnight company and the chips from ABC ? Does that mean I have to put in 3 orders at 3 different websites and pay shipping 3 times?

Well to me they are generic because alot of jokers in non-USPCC decks are a harlequins or clown or something along those lines, I would like the Compass using jokers like Don suggested, but its your deck if you feel its going to be better with your current jokers then go for it.

Don, I do prefer 2-way back design over the 1 way back design, I was not referring to the back design but the faces, should have clarified, with a compass deck there has to be NSEW somewhere right? And I also agree with you on the other points, have your court cards be explorers, perhaps model them after some famous ones.

a 2,500 deck run seems to be a more realistic goal, you have to raise less money and ship out less decks which will make it easier with on you and whoever is helping you.

Seems pretty clip-arty from the one picture Evan has put up.

I have to agree with Don, I am not seeing any suggestions, very good suggestions at that,being taken into consideration, the Carpathia team seems to be asking for suggestions just so that they can explain what the hell each bit of the design means. Sure you might take the Dolphins as a symbol of peace and love, but is it the symbol of the Carpathia or the Titanic? Dolphins did not play a role in the sinking of the Titanic or the rescue of the passengers. And my prejudice as a musician got in the way of my judgement. I just got all excited that the musical instrument I play is on a deck, speaking of which someone should make an orchaestra deck.

Suggestions for the deck which will probably be ignored:
The lack of blue with such a theme in the deck really is kind of a bummer.
Perhaps make the court cards wear life jackets and sailor outfits. Makes sense to me.

Unless someone actually bothers to go round to doing the experiment as stated by Utterfool we will still have to deal anecdotal evidence, ( the best kind of evidence ever ).

You really got me with ' beaten with a brick of arrcos as a child '.

Laughed more than I should have.

But perhaps a flaw with the experiment is that an person who has experienced black decks before can definitely feel whether a deck is inky or not even when blind folded and gagged. So in their mind they would go *click* this is the inky one therefore its worse or something like that.

I will try my best to get this deck just because that king is holding a French Horn, I play for the finest community Wind Orchaestra in Singapore, of course no where near world class. I love the court cards holding instruments! I've been waiting for a deck like this. Slamming 2 of my most favourite hobbies ever together.

Although if I may make a suggestion, if the court cards could be playing the instruments instead of just holding them, that would be great, also make them the correct proportion. Last time I checked a French horn was not that small compared to my hand. The clarinet is about right though.

I admit this post will probably be not as well written or as thought out as what you guys have been putting out but I'll try.

I do believe in stock to ink ratio, in fact I went and grabbed my Americana deck and an NOC deck, which use the same stock and finish and after playing with each one for awhile the Americana started to clump up faster but before it started clumping up, it fanned quite a lot better than the NOC deck. The White Ghost deck ( air cushion ) did not fan as well for me as the Black ghost deck ( also air cushion ) ( v2 ) but there definitely was a difference in even-ness. Which really intrigued me, I don't have any theories on this other than that it varies person to person.

All this debate is not helped by pretend finishes out there like Premium 909 or putting different finishes on the box than the actual cards causing placebo effects and in turn causing people to tell stories that are not proven facts.

so Utterfool, ( you seem a lot more intelligent than your display name implies ) I don't think more ink means worse performance, I really think it varies person to person.

Also deckreview, I looked at my viper deck, it isn't really metallic ink, its a grey made to look like metallic ink because the finish is kind of glossy giving the illusion of metallic ink, unless I somehow got a deck without metallic ink ( I bought mine from Ellusionist recently, it has UV-500 Airflow ) Since it is my only UV-500 deck, I cannot compare it to other decks. So I won't say more about the vipers.

I think metallic ink does in fact make a deck worse, since my Alchemy deck ( with a full gold metallic inked back ) fanned pretty bad.

But after all is being said, you cannot deny that an inky deck definitely feels different from a not so inky deck with the same stock and finish. That different might be good or might be bad, varies from person to person. I personally love inky decks they, perform better for me, such a pity they seem to be less durable. Since I believe it's a person to person thing, I don't think you can prove one is better than the other.

You may have different opinions, you probably do but I really thank you for taking the time to read my opinions and discoveries.

I generally agree with Encarded and his post made me think that humidity levels may have something to do with how inky decks handle compared to less inky ones. I live it the perpetually hot and humid Singapore where the weather report for 30 years is the same forever.

I personally wouldn't get any because in my opinion, the handling of the Ace fulton Casino cards kind of suck, the orange ones anyway and the point was to make a casino deck ... AND THEY MAKE A GAFF? It kind of destroys the idea of it being a casino deck a deck that there cannot be gaffed. Which is why they had all the " security measures " and they put it as a gaff. Oh D&D you so silly. All this in my opinion, feel free to disagree with me.

I first bought a white arcane deck. I from then on was very obsessed with cards, I practiced trick after trick and technique after technique until it was so worn out. The only way it would fan was with a rather large amount of fanning powder. So now it's only useful for flourishing.

I bought it because I saw it in a store and that same day my friends bought me and Artifice V1 blue for no apparent reason.

Seemingly alot of our 1st custom decks come from Ellusionist.